Three Vegetarian Recipes

Although obviously not vegetarian, we do eat that way three or four times a week, most weeks. Last week we had three winners, at least one of which I had never made before (another one we couldn't remember for sure). So as part of today's triple-post, I give you:

• Portobello Mushroom Fajitas -- The only conceivable problem with these is the serving size. If you actually want this to feed more than two people who aren't very hungry, make some sidese! They were fantastic.
• Fried Rice with Broccoli and Eggs -- Doesn't get much more economical than this, and quite tasty as well. Could make a good lunch if you have a cooler.
• Stir-Fried Tofu with Mushrooms, Sugar Snap Peas, and Green Onions -- This is a recipe I probably make every couple of months (which for me is frequent!). There's not much too it, and it's so very good.

 Half a week's worth of wonderful vegetables right there!

Walnut and Rosemary Loaves

The weather is cooling off a bit, the trees are starting to turn on their colors, the flavor palette is shifting. I am finding recipes I had all but forgotten about over the course of the summer, even as short, cold and dark a summer as the one we just had; pot pies, braises, roasts are coming to my attention as if for the first time. And the idea of walnuts and rosemary (indeed, of any sort of bread) sings to me in a way it did not only a few weeks ago.

Walnut and Rosemary Loaves

I love this bread. I make it when I want something a little bit different, and, well, in the winter. It is firm, sturdy, with a strong but not overpowering flavor that takes toppings and sandwich meats well. The perfume while it bakes is better than any candles out there.

I shape mine into oblong loaves, because my oven isn't big enough to do rounds side by side without them running into one another. And even when I do make it in rounds, my loaves don't look anything at all like the picture on the linked page--mine are much loftier. I wonder if they used the wrong photo? Here is my own for comparison. They generally do turn out somewhat dark, even darker this time because I made them on the stone.

Feta-Stuffed Turkey Burgers

So, getting back to the food thing, albeit in a rather brief form, since it's 5 a.m. and I am starving, but want to make sure I get this one down, while the moon sets and someone rattles a shopping cart down the street....

Feta-Stuffed Turkey Burgers

I have made these twice, have not been moved to make the yogurt sauce but otherwise find them reasonably yummy and easy to make. We had our first corn on the cob of the year with them, sweet and crunchy.

This weekend is going to include a lot of running around, but also, I hope, a fair amount of time in my kitchen, continuing the re-grounding process. If nothing else I have pesto to make with the hube bunch of basil that is currently perfuming half the apartment.

In other news, L had her first visit to the dentist yesterday, and as far as they can tell, she has no cavities! (She wouldn't let them take side x-rays.) She does have a pretty bad overbite, however, so we'll have to see what develops there.

Chipotle Sloppy Joes

I could not tell you the last time I had a sloppy joe--probably the last church supper I attended, which puts it back, oh, about twenty years--and I have never made one before in my life. So I have no idea what possessed me to make this recipe. I guess I wanted to make something different?

Chipotle Sloppy Joes

I'll definitely be making these again. The chipotle adds just enough punch--they'd be kind of dull without it. I used red pepper instead of green, because all the green peppers at my store looked about two weeks old (ugh). Caramelize the onions a bit, and the result, while maybe not fit for a dinner party, is something I wouldn't be shy about serving friends.

L didn't want any meat, but she did put her sliced peppers and cucumbers between the bun halves and ate it like a sandwich; I don't think she's ever done that before. We're always greatly encouraged when she tries a new dinner behavior.

Hearty Bean and Barley Soup

Not been a stellar week of new recipes around here. We had this on Monday, just now getting around to recording it. Again, it was okay, but just not that interesting. Admittedly, it being a weeknight, I skipped the broth intensification step, and maybe it would be worthwhile giving it another shot, but... eh. Probably won't get around to it.

Hearty Bean and Barley Soup

Goat Cheese and Roasted Corn Quesadillas

This was part of last night's dinner. I don't really want to review this now, but did want to leave something of a placeholder for a later repeat. Not that there was anything wrong with the recipe, but there's no fresh corn to be had at this time of year, and you can't char frozen corn, it's got too much water in it. So I would really like to try it again when good ear corn is available, because I suspect that it'll make a decent recipe really good.

Goat Cheese and Roasted Corn Quesadillas

Fennel-Rubbed Pork with Shallot-Pomegranate Reduction

This may be the first legitimate "OMG" recipe of the year. The unique zing of the fennel, the pungency of the cracked pepper, and the sweetness of the pomegranate all come together and you close your eyes and hum.

It's that good. And just to ice the cake, it's easy.

Fennel-Rubbed Pork with Shallot-Pomegranate Reduction

The only question is, what to serve with it. We had a spinach salad, which was fine, and a simple rice pilaf (I didn't make the walnut couscous the link suggests), which was "meh." Maybe the couscous would have been better.

The reduction does tend to run all over the plate, which makes presentation a tad tricky. I'd love to make this for a dinner party someday, and if I did, I think I'd serve in courses, give this the messy run of the plate and maybe have a little risotto or something separately (ooh, an excuse to make lemon risotto again!).

Soup and Bread, Part 2

I worked from home on Tuesday, and threw my week out of whack. I generally work from home on Wednesday, you see, and it's funny how these little things become ingrained into your thoughts, so that I spent the next day vaguely out of sorts because my body thought it was a different day of the week than it actually was. Having a cold didn't help.

But on Tuesday we were supposed to get "our every five or six day storm," as the radio meteorologist resignedly (and accurately) called it, and all of my normal meetings had been canceled in favor of a big project review, which is the kind of thing I am regularly grateful I don't have to go to. So I switched my days around.

Working from home not only saves energy and my sanity, it allows me to make things that take time but not effort--like bread, and bean soup using (gasp) dried beans. There's this meme out there right now that dried beans are totally the way to go (Mark Bittman and Rancho Gordo being the prime movers, apparently). I'm not really vested in the argument, since I've always opted for the convenience of canned, but I figured I should give the dried ones a try if the time and inclination ever came together, and Tuesday turned out to be it.

I can't say that I was totally blown away, but I could see a positive difference in the texture between the dried ones I cooked up and the canned ones I normally use, even though I think I overcooked them. The recipe that I used was more or less this one, since I had most of the stuff it wanted. I used a canned roasted chile in place the jalapeno (should I just start buying one every week, just in case?), and added a bit of cayenne to offset what seemed to my virally-impaired palate a lack of resulting heat. The soup was fine and sturdy, the bacon particularly yummy.

To go with it, I made this walnut bread. I went back and forth on whether to add the walnuts or not, went ahead and added them, and berated myself when L noted their presence and refused to eat any of it. JJ, on the other hand, ripped his little piece into tinier bits and ate them thoughtfully.

Today, the gas station sign said 10 degrees when I left Worcester. Itis not supposed to get much warmer than that all day. Along with everyone else I know, I am seriously sick of this weather. February is always the toughest month, I remind myself. I am nevertheless going to venture out of the office today and have lunch with a friend I haven't seen in ages.

Whole Wheat Orange Juice Muffins

Lately it seems like baking anything other than bread is something I do for company. This is not good for my mental health, or for my baking skills. This morning, after another up-and-down night with the Little Guy Who Does Not Sleep, Not Even When He's Tucked All Cozy Between Mommy and Daddy, I got up around 5:30, checked my email, did my usual web rounds, and did my usual musings to the effect of, Everyone else is still in bed. I could do something useful.... Except this time, instead of heading off to another pointless web site, I actually did it! I got up from my chair and made muffins.

OK, I realize this does not exactly qualify as heroics, but it's the little things, right? In this case, the very little things, since in a moment of wild abandon I hauled out my mini-muffin pans. I have no idea why I have these, and I have only previously used them to make party appetizers. But today I wanted to make muffins, and the idea of a bounty of miniature ones pleased me, so here we are.

This is my standard muffin recipe, since it uses things I always have around. Plus of course it's tasty, appallingly easy, and you can tell yourself it's okay to eat a lot of them because there's whole wheat flour. Yum. I am doubly pleased with myself, because I have been meaning to do this for weeks--why suffer through stale grocery store bagels or overpriced donut shop fare, when it only take five minutes to whip up a batch of these suckers?

Whole Wheat Orange Juice Muffins

Also, I have been rereading bits of Much Depends on Dinner, which D got out recently and left where I could pick it up (I get a lot of my reading material from things he's left lying around). It's a fascinating book, full of weird trivia (like the fact that there are caverns under Detroit where salt has been mined out... I've never wanted to visit Detroit before!). It's not entirely free of preachiness, the besetting sin of food writing, but it does at least endeavor to take a balanced approach, and has just a ton of fascinating historical tidbits. A fun read, even if it does make me long for summer's fresh corn more than is good for me in January.